Chapter 19 Thunderstorms Emmett #2
But a dam has broken. Collapsed. And Cara trembles violently in my arms as she struggles, pushes against me, climbs to her feet.
“I hate myself,” she sobs, gripping her hair, eyes wild as they bounce around the room.
“I hate this fucking body, for not working properly. I hate my fucking brain, every thought in my head that reminds me I’m a failure.
I hate the jealousy, the way it makes me burn with rage to see everyone else get what we want so badly without having to go through even an ounce of the pain we do.
I hate that I want people to feel the same pain.
” Her fists tighten in her hair as she spins away.
“God, what’s wrong with me? I don’t want anyone to go through this, but I’m so fucking tired of feeling alone in it. ”
Her hands fall to her sides, cries quieting.
She hangs her head, and when I take her hands in mine, she lets me.
“I hate Natasha,” she whispers. Slowly, her gaze rises to mine, and there’s something there that has my breath catching in my throat.
Something terrifying, staggering. Resignation, almost. But that can’t be right.
Can it?
“I hate her because she’s right. I can’t give you what you want, Emmett. I can’t. And I don’t know how to live with that. I can’t live with that.”
“What?” My hands quake as I grip her face, trembling fingers pushing her hair from her sopping cheeks. “Baby, no. No.” I shake my head, licking the salty tears from my lips. “I have everything I could ever want. I have you. That’s all I need.”
“It’s not enough. I’m not enough. Not for you, and”—she chokes out a sob, scrubbing at her raw eyes—“not for me.”
“You are always enough, Cara. Always.”
“I’m broken, Emmett!” She pushes away from me. The quiver in her hands is violent as she gestures at herself. “I’m a goddamn mess, Emmett! Look at me!”
“I’m always fucking looking at you! Always!
I can’t take my fucking eyes off you, Care.
And I can’t—fuck.” I bury my tortured sob behind my hands.
“Maybe I don’t want a baby anymore. Not if it means losing you along the way.
Because, fuck, Cara, that’s what this feels like.
Watching this wreak havoc on you, watching it fucking…
kill you. Jesus, it feels like I’m watching every part of you slowly die, and I have to stand by and do nothing, because I don’t know how to fucking fix this.
” I clutch my chest, my heart. If it would fix things, I’d tear it out myself.
Offer it to Cara on a silver platter. “I don’t know how to do this anymore,” I admit on a desperate, broken plea.
“I don’t, Cara. It’s killing you, and it’s fucking destroying me. ”
She cries harder, so hard I’m worried she’s not getting enough air.
Strangled sobs, gasping breaths, fingertips digging into her chest, like she’s desperately trying to keep the last pieces of her heart together.
All I want to do is take her into my arms. Hold her so tight, where I can keep her safe.
When her frantic gaze roams the room, like she’s looking for something, anything, to hold on to, I step toward her.
But then she grabs her purse off the kitchen counter. Her keys. She looks at me.
And she steps back.
Once.
Twice.
“Care?” I sniffle, blinking as I follow her. “What are you doing?” She steps into her shoes, and my heart lodges itself in my throat. “Where are you going?”
Cara’s eyes swim with an agony so fierce, so deep, I feel it wash over every inch of me, a dark cloud that steals the sunshine, leaving me in darkness as she backs away from me, one excruciatingly slow step after another. When she stops at the front door, I feel every damn inch of space between us.
And then I fill it. Chest heaving, I crowd around her. Tear her coat from her hands when she tries to put it on. Reach behind her to lock the door, and then wrap my arms around her from behind when she presses her forehead to the door and weeps.
“Let me go,” she cries, our bodies shaking together as I soak her neck with my tears, clutching her against me. “Let me go, Emmett!”
“No. I can’t.” I hold her tighter, until there isn’t an ounce of space between us. Until our tears mix, and the heat of her body warms me again. “I won’t let you.”
A pained howl leaves her throat, and she softly bangs her forehead against the door. “It’s not your decision, Emmett.”
“I’m going to fix this. Let me fix this.”
“Some things can’t be fixed, Emmett! Don’t you get that?
” She turns in my arms, gripping my sweater, pleading with me, but all I can see is the world I’ve built in those eyes.
“I can’t do this. I can’t get pregnant. It’s not working.
I’m not working. And I’m making everything worse.
If it weren’t for me—” Tears free-fall down her pink cheeks as she chokes on her words, shaking her head.
She closes her eyes, like she can’t bear to look at me.
“You’re right. This is ruining me. And I won’t let it destroy you in the process. ”
She slips from my stunned hold, flipping the lock on the door.
Bitter wind whips inside when she opens it; angry, dark clouds hanging heavy in the sky, the earlier snow gone.
“You can’t…” I swallow, the fractured words caught in my throat. “You can’t leave.”
She hangs her head, clutching her car keys in her hand.
Suddenly, she spins back to me, crashing against me as our lips collide.
Trembling fingertips flutter over my cheeks, pressing against my jaw, holding me in place as her mouth moves over mine.
My arms come around her as I let her taste me, a desperate groan working its way up my throat as she slides her hands all over me.
Through my hair, over my shoulders, gliding slowly down my back to grip my waist. It’s not until they come back to my face, cradling it gently as her mouth slows, that I realize what she’s doing.
Memorizing me. The way I feel beneath her hands.
And when she takes those hands away? When her mouth leaves mine, and those tears rain down like a violent storm?
That’s when I realize she’s leaving me.